Norse Mythology, Gaiman

Collection of tales from Norse mythology told my Neil Gaiman.

This was pretty good – thought I’d read it after reading [[Mythos, Fry]]^N since I liked the format. This book seemed a bit more serious and less light-hearted which is no fault of the book but I enjoyed the style of [[Mythos, Fry]]^N more.

I’ve tried to summarise the myths/chapters below, so there will be spoiler. It’s weird that since

The Players

Odin: the “all-father”, old and wise, hung from the world-tree as a sacrafice for more knowledge
- Has two ravens that tell him about stuff, “thought” and “memory”
- Has a big throne that he sits on and can see everything
Thor: Odin’s son, god of thunder. Has a hammer, Mjollnir, and a belt, Megingjord, which doubles his strength
Loki: very cunning blood-brother of Odin, son of a giant and someone called “Laufey”

Before the Beginning, and After

The creation story
Originally only a “mist world” and a “fire world”
Mist formed into ice that was then melted by the fire
This produced water, from which sprung a giant bigger than all giants, called Ymir
Also produced a cow “bigger than the mind could hold” who licked the ancestor of the gods “Buri” from the ice
Buri had sons with offspring of the giant and among these was Odin
Odin and some of the other sons killed the giant and then used his flesh and bones to make the world
Looking up into the sky, you see the inside of Ymir’s skull
Odin and friends wandered around and found two logs, carved them and then breathed life into them (sort of like how Athena breathed life into Prometheus’ clay creations in [[Mythos, Fry]]^N)

Yggdrasil and the Nine Worlds

Yggdrasil is the huge ash tree that connects the nine worlds:
- Asgard, where the Aesir live
- Alfheim, where the light elves live
- Nidavellir, where the dark elves (dwarves) live
- Midgard, our world
- Jotunheim, where giants live
- Vanaheim, where the Vanir live
- Niflheim, the dark mist world from the start of creation
- Muspell, the world of flame
Aesir and Vanir are gods
Three norns tend to three wells that feed the world-tree, and represent fate (similar to the Fates in [[Mythos, Fry]]^N)

Mimir’s Head and Odin’s Eye

Mimir is the guardian of memory and knows a lot of things
Odin goes to see him at some point to seek more wisdom and he has to put his eye in one of the wells that feeds the world-tree
Drinks water from the well from a horn called the Gjallerhorn
Gets super wise
Eventually gives the horn to Heimdall who will blow the horn when Ragnarok comes
Vanir get angry and cut off Mimir’s head at one point so Odin preserves his head and it still talks to him

⭐️ The Treasures of the Gods

Loki cuts of Thor’s wife’s hair, for a laugh
Thor gets angry and demands Loki finds a solution
Loki gets some dwarves to do a competition to present gifts to the gods, one of which has to be replacement golden hair
The gifts end up being:
- The golden hair
- A ship called Skidbladnir which folds up like a cloth and always has a fair wind
- An arm ring called Draupnir, which produces eight more gold arm rings every ninth night
- A golden boar called Gullenbursti which is really good at pulling chariots and lights the way
- Thor’s hammer, Mjollnir, which can shrink in size
- Thor’s belt, Megingjord, which doubles his strength

The Master Builder

A mountain giant in disguise as a human offers to build the gods wall around Asgard, in exchange for the moon and then sun
Loki comes up with a plan to trick him into building 99% and then them finishing the rest

The Children of Loki

Loki has children with a giantess, which end up being three big villains
Jormungundr, a huge serpent that could spit burning venom
Hel, a half dead and half alive woman who ends up ruling over the underworld
Fenris, a huge wolf
They trick Fenris into being put into chains made by dwarves that are almost indestructible, but in the process Tyr, another god, lost his hand

Freya’s Unusual Wedding

An ogre stole Thor’s hammer
In exchange he wants Thor’s wife, so they trick the ogre by dressing up Thor as a woman and then when he gets the hammer he kills the ogre and pretty much everyone else at the wedding
The Mead of Poets
Kvasir was a wise god who was born out of spit from an agreement made between the Venir and Aesir.
These two dwarves trick him and drain his blood to make the “mead of poets” which makes gives anyone who drinks it the gift of poetry and the gift of scholarship
They also kill this giant and his wife by taking them out on a boat and making them drown
Eventually avenged by one of their children, Suttung, and are about to be drowned in a similar way but then offer the mead in return for their lives
Suttung hides the mead in a mountain guarded by his daughter
Odin wants to bring the mead to the gods, so through some trickery ends up infiltrating the mountain and swallowing all the mead, by convincing Suttung’s daughter he was in love
Pursued by Suttung in the form of an eagle, Odin just makes it back to Asgard and sprays it down into vats constructed by the gods
Also, Odin literally sprays some mead out of his ass at Suttung to escape, and when people write bad poetry that’s the mead that they have tasted

⭐️ Thor’s Journey to the Land of the Giants

Thor and Loki stop at this house on the edge of wild country and expect food, but the house doesn’t provide much food
Loki tricks one of the residents, Thialfi, into using bones that Thor was going to use
In exchange for not burning the whole house down, Thialfi becomes their servant
Thialfi is a very fast runner
They head towards Jotunheim, and get annoyed by this rumbling sound when they try and sleep, which actually turn out to be the rumbles of a huge giant, the largest they’ve ever seen
They travel with him for a while, and Thor keeps getting annoyed at his snoring and eventually tries to hit him on the head with a hammer to wake him up
They eventually leave the big giant, and find a fortress with another giant there who challenges all three to different tasks: Loki to an eating competition, Thialfi to a running race, Thor to a wrestling match with his mother, a drinking competition and to lift a cat.
They all fail, but it turns out it was the original giant they had found using magic to trick them:
- Thor had actually drunk one inch of the sea
- Loki had almost beaten fire incarnate at eating
- Thialfi had run almost as fast as thought
- Thor had wrestled old age and lifted the Midgard serpent
- and it turned out that the giant had moved huge mountains in front of his hammers blow to save himself

The Apples of Immortality

Loki upsets an eagle who ends up almost killing him, so he offers the apples of immortality owned by Idunn, one of the gods
Loki kidnaps Idunn, but now the gods don’t have apples to keep them immortal
Thor gets angry and tells Loki his only chance at life is to recover the apples
Loki turns Idunn into a hazelnut and then is pursued by the eagle
The gods burn a bunch of wood shavings in order to set the eagle alight and kill it
The eagle’s daughter wanted compensation for his death and she got the following three things:
- A husband, who she wanted to be Balder, the most beautiful of the gods, but due to a trick ended up with Njord, another god
- Laughter, which Loki achieved by tieing a piece of string to his genitals and the other end to a goat
- The memory of her father forevermore, which the gods achieved by sending up his two eyes into the sky which shine as stars

The Story of Gerd and Frey

Frey is one of the gods with a magic flaming sword that fights for him and a bunch of other treasures but is still unhappy
One day he sits on Odin’s seat and sees what he truly desires: a light elf named Gerd
He sends his most loyal servant to go and ask for her hand in marriage, and in exchange gives his servant his sword as payment
That sword would have saved him in Ragnarok

Hymir and Thor’s Fishing Expedition

Gods visit Aegir, the greatest of the sea giants
Says he will only feed them if they can find him a cauldron big enough to brew ale for all the gods, which he thinks is impossible
Tyr’s stepfather has a cauldron big enough, so him and Thor go for a visit
His stepfather, Hymir, is quite angry all the time, and really hates Thor, so they call him “Veor” as a disguise
Veor eats one of his most prized cattle, which upsets him, and then kills one of his cattle and takes its head for bait, which also upsets him
They go on a fishing trip and with the head as bait, Thor catches the Midgard serpent, Jormungundr.
Hymir, who he is fishing with, gets scared that all the thrashing is going to sink the boat and kill them, so cuts the line
They end up just eating whale instead
Thor still needs the cauldron, so asks if he can borrow it, and Tymir says only if he can smash the cup he drinks from
He fails but then is given a hint that he needs to smash it against Hymir’s head
He succeeds, Hymir is very sad and tries to send an army to attack them, but Thor kills them all and the gods end up with a magical huge cauldron

The Death of Balder

Balder has bad dreams about the end of the world
His mum gets worried and makes everything, apart from mistetoe, promise to never hurt him
The gods laugh at the fact that they can swing bats at him and they will swerve out of the way, but Hod, Balder’s brother, gets upset since he can’t see what’s going on
Loki tricks Hod into throwing a dart made of mistletoe at Balder, which kills him
The gods plead to Hel in order to let him to come out of the underworld. She agrees, as long as every living thing weeps for him
Loki in disguise doesn’t weep, so it’s not possible
The gods realised it was Thor and resolved to try and punish him, but he was hiding

The Last Days of Loki

Loki eventually comes back out of hiding and joins the gods for a feast
He gets too drunk and insults each and every one of the gods and despite getting kicks out, reminds Odin that he can only drink in the presence of his blood-brother
In the morning he sobers up and makes his escape, eventually settling in a room of a house with four doors so he can see in all directions
He also turns into a salmon by day in order to go undetected
One day he’s counterplanning and thinks about how the gods could make something, which turns out to be a net, that could catch him
He realises the gods are on their way and chucks the net on the fire and transforms into a salmon to escape
Kvasir realises what he was doing and the gods construct a net to try and catch him
Eventually they succeed and Thor catches him in the water
As punishment, they took him deep down into a cave, and bind him in the entrails of his own children (!?) which turn into (almost) unbreakable bonds
They place him under a snake which drips venom into his eyes, and he writhes in pain
His wife is there and can’t undo him but can hold a bowl to catch the venom before he reaches him
Every now and then she has to empty the bowl, and this is when the venom reaches Loki
His writhing is what we feel as earthquakes

Ragnarok: The Final Destiny of the Gods

There will be an unending winter, the Fimbulwinter
The sun and moon will disappear
There will be an earthquake so strong it breaks all bonds, freeing Loki, Fenrir
Floods will mean the poison from the Midgard serpent will kill all sea life
Loki will helm a ship called Naglfar, made from the uncut fingernails of the dead
Eventually this all culminates in a battle at Vigrid
Odin is eaten by Fenrir
Frey dies
Thor finally kills the Midgard serpent but becomes mortally injured too
Vidar, one of Odin’s sons, avenges his father by holding down Fenrir’s jaw with a shoe made of leather straps, and then rips his jaw in half
Loki and Heimdall battle and both die side my side
A woman called Life, and a woman called Life’s Yearning, survive and populate the earth
Balder, and another god, called Magni survive, and eventually find the gods have been turned into golden chess pieces